ether
noun/ˈiːθə(r)/
/ˈiːθər/
[uncountable]- a clear liquid made from alcohol, used in industry as a solvent and, in the past, in medicine to make people unconscious before an operation
Want to learn more?
Find out which words work together and produce more natural sounding English with the Oxford Collocations Dictionary app.
- the ether(old use or literary) the upper part of the sky
- Her words disappeared into the ether.
- the etherthe air, when it is thought of as the place in which radio or electronic communication takes place
- The messages simply vanish into the ether after 24 hours.
Word Originlate Middle English: from Old French, or via Latin from Greek aithēr ‘upper air’, from the base of aithein ‘burn, shine’. Originally the word denoted a substance believed to occupy space beyond the sphere of the moon. Sense (1) arose in the mid 18th cent.
Check pronunciation:
ether